New Commission: 7000sqft Neo-Georgian Mansion on the St. George’s Hill Estate

BLOG

New Commission: 7000sqft Neo-Georgian Mansion on the St. George’s Hill Estate

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Our latest project is a proposal for a new country house on the private St. George’s Hill Estate in Surrey, one of the most beautiful and exclusive residential estates in the country – if not the world.

This proposal for a new 7000sqft mansion would replace an existing house on the site of a similar scale. A traditional Georgian façade would be constructed from aged and reclaimed material with period replica weighted sash windows, in keeping with the surrounding style of the St. George’s Hill Estate.

At the back, a contemporary, tiered elevation with ample glazing will provide abundant natural light and seamless access to the site’s generous grounds, which will also benefit from substantial landscaping to creature a terrace flush with the basement floor.

Within this basement, an indoor pool, cinema room, spa and gym will create a floor dedicated to leisure and luxury. The basement and levels above will have a mostly contemporary finish, though our clients are entertaining the idea of having a grand, period-style dining room straight out of Downton Abbey.

We look forward to sharing more details on this exciting new project as it progresses.

The history of the St. George’s Hill Estate

St. George’s Hill was one of the many projects of master builder W.G. Tarrant, whose local workshop in Byfleet employed more than 5000 people. The land for the estate was purchased from the aristocratic Egerton family in 1911, and Tarrant soon got to work on the first of his trademark high quality, imposing country houses.

But Tarrant had more ambition than just house building. He wanted to create his dream residential estate, a retreat for London’s captains of industry that offered privacy, natural beauty and leisure facilities – including a golf course, which was one of the first additions to the 964 acres of Surrey countryside.

Tarrant would go on to found many more estates across the country, including the equally desirable Wentworth Estate, where we also have ongoing projects. His houses typically featured a mock tudor style, but Neo-Georgian has become the dominant architecture of the St. George’s Hill Estate.

What makes St. George’s Hill unique is how fiercely Tarrant’s initial principles for the estate have been protected, thanks to the St. George’s Hill Resident’s Association. All land not owned home owners is jointly owned by the Resident’s Association, who maintain its roads, hedges, trees and open spaces to preserve the feeling of a continuous country lane throughout the estate.

St. George’s Hill security has been updated since Tarrant’s time with electronic access cards, CCTV and manned gates at the entrance. Simply entering the estate feels like a privilege, and once you start exploring its lush and leafy lanes, you understand why so much effort has been put into preserving Tarrant’s vision.